1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an image reproducing apparatus, and, more particularly, it is concerned with an apparatus for reproducing a series of images with varied magnification.
2. Related Background Art
With progress in office-automation in recent years, remarkable development has been attained in the size-reduction and multi-functionalization in reproducing apparatuses. As the consequence of this, even small-sized reproduction apparatuses are equipped with an appropriate magnification-varying mechanism so as to meet various needs of users in general.
The change in magnification to be performed in this type of reproduction apparatus is accomplished by varying the velocity ratio of an optical motor for driving an optical scanning system for reading an image original and a main motor for driving a photosensitive drum system so as to obtain an image on a reduced scale or an image on an enlarged scale. For instance, in an image reproduction apparatus of an image original table moving type, the moving velocity of the image original table is made greater than that of the photosensitive drum (at a constant velocity) to reduce the scale of the reproduced image, or the moving velocity of the image original table is made less than that of the drum to thereby enlarge the scale of the reproduced image.
As such, the conventional reproduction apparatuses produce a life-size image, an enlarged scale image, and a reduced scale image by maintaining a constant magnification-varying ratio during a single image forming operations. With such conventional reproduction apparatuses, however, when the magnification-varying ratio is constant, various images on the original will be enlarged or reduced at a constant ratio. This can lead to difficulties in the image editing process, and particularly when image lay-out is performed for design purposes. In such image lay-out, various patterns are often laid-out by the intentional combination of one image in one pattern in various scales. However, difficulty would inevitably arise in the editorial work to be done satisfactorily, because, for example, the image is converted into electrical signals as in a laser printer to obtain a reproduced image in a desired magnification, or a single image is subjected to a magnification change some number of times. Thereafter the thus obtained images in various magnifications are clipped and attached onto desired positions on a sheet to thereby prepare an original design sheet, which is further reproduced on a life-size scale to prepare a desired edition of the image. Such editorial work is extremely complicated, and also wastes a large amount of paper.
Further, when forming an image on a reduced scale, the conventional reproduction apparatuses are disadvantageous on that, when the image in a reduced scale spreads out beyond the edge of recording paper of regular sizes such as A4, A3, and B4 sizes, a large blank area would be formed in a single sheet of recording paper with the consequence that, when a large quantity of such images of reduced size are required a larger amount of recording paper would be needed than the number of recording paper primarily required; hence there would be a considerable increase in the cost for the office supplies.